Maurice Denis's interest in Cézanne is instructive as both he and the older artist manifested revolutionary as well as reactionary aspects. Cézanne's position was neither definitively Impressionist nor definitively Symbolist or idealist. Whereas Symbolists sought to discover universally meaningful visual configurations, complete in themselves, Impressionists had always avoided completion in one way or another. Argues that Cézanne's intense relationship with nature was deeply personal. His sensation, expressed in a handling of paint which was at once highly unconventional and constantly being recrafted, was both a response to changing nature and Cézanne's fluctuating experience of it. Concludes that contemporary painters' fascination with Cézanne's technique may be to do with the 'digital' quality of his work. ;